AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She nods, but I can see the fear in her eyes. “I’m a little nervous,” she admits. “This place gives me the creeps.”
I want to reach out and comfort her, to hold her close and tell her everything will be alright. But I know I can’t. Not yet.
We make our way into the hotel, then up the grand staircase. Roadies and people working the tour take out the band’s equipment while we make our way up the grand staircase as our footsteps echo through the empty halls. There’s only one person here, the security guard, who is more than happy to open gates and doors for us.
The rooms are all locked, but there’s old furniture inside–new old furniture, this clearly hasn’t been here for more than a century. The rooms are immaculately clean, but they still look old, with crown molding on the ceiling and large windows with intricate designs.
I keep my eyes peeled for any signs of possession, but so far, there’s nothing. Trine looks tired–exhausted even–but there’s nothing about her that sets me on edge.
Devon starts to tell us that we’ll have to bunk up. “There are enough rooms here for all of us, but they haven’t finished renovating the hotel entirely yet,” he says. “So a lot of the rooms have furniture and other things in it.”
Londyn rolls her eyes. “I know,” she says, tucking a strand of brown hair behind her ear. “I talked to them about it. You have your own room, Javi.”
He furrows his brow. “That seems entirely unnecessary,” he says softly. “How many rooms are there?”
“Really? Five,” Devon says.
I assume the band is used to sharing rooms, but I guess I didn’t expect to have to do that. Misha and Trine quickly say they don’t mind sharing, as if that was ever in question. Sierra and Kelly pair up, Bryony and Alana say they don’t mind sharing a room, and that leaves Londyn, Javi, Devon and I.
“You can sleep in my room, Londyn,” Javi says. “I know the crew is going to a different hotel, but I assume you have plenty to do, so just stay here. I’ll take the couch.”
I watch Alana smile as he says this. Javi has obvious practice at being the perfect gentleman and it impresses her.
I feel a stab of jealousy, then tell myself I don’t get to be jealous. I’m no one to her. A one-night stand doesn’t mean anything but that.
As we start to make our way to our shared rooms, I can feel Alana's eyes on me. I turn to look at her and she quickly glances away, a blush rising in her cheeks. I can't help but smile to myself.
We enter our room and I'm surprised to find that it's not as cramped as I thought it would be. The furniture is old, but it's been well-preserved. I can't help but feel a sense of unease, like we're intruding in a space that's not meant for us.
Devon enters behind me, setting his backpack down. "For what it's worth," he says. "I wouldn't have minded if Alana wanted to share with you. We can still swap."
I watch him. "What did she tell you?"
"She didn't tell me anything," he says. "I have eyes."
I guess we weren’t as discreet as I thought we were.
I can feel my face heat up, embarrassed at being caught. I didn’t even go near her and Devon noticed. I wonder if any of her other bandmates noticed too. I wonder if they noticed the way she was interacting with Javi…
I can feel my face heat up, but Devon doesn’t seem to care at all about my embarrassment. He tosses me a can of beer from his bag and plops down on one of the beds. “C’mon,” he says. “Let’s relax a little before sound check.”
I join him on the bed, cracking open the beer. It’s warm, but it’s better than nothing. We sit in silence for a few minutes, listening to the sounds of the old hotel settling around us, of the people we’re on tour with laughing and chatting with each other.
"You ever been in a place like this before?" Devon asks, breaking the silence.
I shake my head. "No. Have you?"
He nods. "Yeah. Once. I was on tour with this band back in college and we played in this old church that had been converted into a venue. It was creepy as hell."
I raise an eyebrow. "Really?"
He nods. "Yeah. There were weird symbols carved into the walls and the acoustics were all fucked up. But the show was fucking cool. I mean, terrifying. But cool.”
“What happened?” I ask.
Devon takes a swig from his beer before answering. "Well, the whole place had this weird vibe to it. Like we weren’t supposed to be there. And then, in the middle of our set, the lights started to flicker and we heard this weird chanting coming from the back of the room. Louder than the band. The loudest band you can imagine. We could barely carry a fucking tune, the drummer had the heaviest touch ever. He sucked. And we wereloud." He shudders. "I don't know what it was, but it was definitely not human."
I can feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. "Did you ever find out what it was?"
